Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2011/06/29
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]greetings! it is wrong to always assume good faith intentions behind official policies. not only has photography by civilians in train stations been prohibited by the current government, so has photography on any and all beaches in Mumbai. why? because having civilians taking photographs may be inconvenient in case an official story has to be cooked up. it would not do to have photographic evidence by numerous random people contradicting the official facts. the banning of photos along Mumbai's beaches is particularly relevant here as numerous people along those very beaches identified numerous people in the days leading up to the 2008 attack on Mumbai as suspicious and actually had photos of them. and reported them to the Coast Guard as well as Mumbai police. this led to numerous questions as to why the relevant authorities had not taken steps to prevent the Mumbai attacks. there were at least 10 local people in Mumbai who were photographed by civilians recce-ing the future landing zones on behalf of the Islamic terrorists who eventually invaded those same beaches. these people have not been arrested or brought to trial. these were identified as henchmen of a notorious Mafia don called Dawood Ibrahim who is currently in Karachi. it will come as no surprise to Luggers therefore that the Minister of Home Affairs, responsible for Mumbai's security in 2008, is back in that very same post. his first response to the attacks of 2008 was "in large cities, such small accidents do happen". this same Minister was later photographed, yes photographed, conferring with aides of Dawood Ibrahim, one of whom was later arrested for a terrorist attack in a different Indian state. see http://ibnlive.in.com/news/rr-patils-underworld-connections/131936-37.html?from=tn the next time around, there will be no civilians taking inconvenient photos. when you have a government that clearly does not care about the citizenry, such prohibitions are inevitable. it is important to recognize this obvious lack of care, rather than try explaining it away as some bureaucratic snafu or stupid paranoia. this prohibition is not an accident. it is deliberate deliberate policy. regards, bharani Message: 31 Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2011 08:39:15 +0530 From: Jayanand Govindaraj <jayanand at gmail.com> Subject: [Leica] Faces To: Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org> Message-ID: <BANLkTinP0BSifZC70MpDM=5Z3r0hdz88=w at mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 This photo is from March 2010, on the platform of New Delhi railway station, waiting for a train to take a bunch of us to Ranthambhore. It helped that there was this bearded foreigner, Howard Cummer, snapping away near me and therefore being the subject of all the attention! The pity is that the authorities, as stupid and paranoid as they tend to be anywhere in the world, have since banned photography at train stations in India, so this sort of photograph cannot be taken right now. http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/People/_JGA6064d.jpg.html Comments and criticism, as ever, welcome. Cheers Jayanand